S4 


B    4 


072    001 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 


GIFT  OF 

Lewis  F,  Lengfeld 


1 


TH 
01 


AN 


ORATION 


UN    THE   DEATH    OF 


DANIEL   O'CONNELL: 


DELIVERED  AT  CASTLE  GARDEN,  NEW-YORK, 
SEPTEMBER   22,  1847. 


BY    WILLIAM    H.    SEWARD. 


AUBUEN,  N.  Y. : 
PUBLISHED  BY  J.  C.  DERBY  &  CO.; 

BUFFALO :  DERBY  &  HEWSON. 
1847. 


II.  UONTGOMKRV.  rBINTEK. 


IJ. 


u 


H 


ORATION. 


There  is  sad  news  from  Genoa.  An  aged  and  weary 
pilgrim,  who  can  travel  no  farther,  passes  beneath  the 
gate  of  one  of  her  ancient  palaces,  saying  with  pious 
resignation  as  he  enters  its  silent  chambers,  "Well !  it 
is  God's  will  that  I  shall  never  see  Rome.  I  am  dis- 
appointed. But  I  am  ready  to  die.  It  is  all  right." 
"The  superb,"'  though  fading  Queen  of  the  Medi- 
terranean holds  anxious  watch,  through  ten  long  days, 
over  that  majestic  stranger's  wasting  frame.  And  now 
death  is  there — the  Liberator  of  Ireland  has  sunk  to 
rest  in  the  Cradle  of  Columbus. 

Coincidence  beautiful  and  most  sublime  !  It  was  the 
very  day  set  apart  by  the  elder  daughter  of  the  Church 
for  prayer  and  sacrifice  throughout  the  world,  for  the 
children  of  the  sacred  Island,  perishing  by  famine  and 
pestilence  in  their  homes  and  in  their  native  fields,  and 
on  their  crowded  paths  of  exile,  on  the  sea  and  in  the 
havens,  and  on  the  lakes,  and  along  the  rivers  of  this 
far-distant  land.  The  chimes  rung  out  by  pity  for  his 
countrymen  were  O'Connell's  fitting  knell;  his  soul 
went  forth  on  clouds  of  incense  that  rose  from  altars  of 
Christian  Charity :  and  the  mournful  anthems  which 

148 


recited  the  faith,  and  the  virtue,  and  the  endurance  of 
Ireland,  were  his  becoming  requiem. 

It  is  a  holy  sight  to  see  the  obsequies  of  a  soldier, 
not  only  of  Civil  Liberty,  but  of  the  Liberty  of  Con- 
science— of  a  soldier,  not  only  of  Freedom,  but  of  the 
Cross  of  Christ — of  a  benefactor,  not  merely  of  a  race 
or  people,  but  of  mankind.  The  vault  lighted  by  sus- 
pended worlds  is  the  temple  within  which  the  great 
solemnities  are  celebrated.  The  nations  of  the  earth 
are  mourners,  and  the  spirits  of  the  just  made  perfect, 
descending  from  their  golden  thrones  on  high,  break 
forth  into  songs  like  this  : 

"  Tears  are  not  now  thy  due.     From  tlie  "world's  toil, 

Come  to  assume  in  Heaven  the  brighter  birth  : 
A  winged  angel,  from  thy  mortal  coil 

Escap'd !     Thy  glory  lingers  yet  round  earth. 
Christ's  hallowed  warrior,  living,  thou  went'st  forth ; 

Christ's  champion  did'st  thou  die.     And  now,  blest  shade  ! 
The  crown  and  palm  of  righteousness  and  worth 

Thou  wear'st,  with  joys  unspeakable  repaid." 

The  Priesthood  of  Genoa,  grateful  for  the  honor  of 
dismissing  the  lofty  spirit  from  its  mortal  conflict,  cover 
the  departing  bier  with  sad  funereal  weeds. 

Rome,  ever  avaricious  of  relics,  though  she  has 
gathered  into  her  Urn  the  ashes  of  the  great  and  good 
of  near  thirty  centuries,  reverentially  claims  and  em- 
balms and  shrines  with  her  soul -subduing  litanies,  the 
heart  of  yet  another — 

"  Who  through  the  foes  has  born  her  banish'd  Gods." 

Behold  now  a  Nation  which  needeth  not  to  speak  its 
melancholy    precedence.      The    Lament  of    Ireland 


5 

comes  forth  from  palaces  deserted,  and  from  shrines 
restored;  from  Boyne's  dark  water,  witness  of  her  des- 
olation, and  from  Tara's  lofty  hill,  ever  echoing  her  re- 
nown. But  louder  and  deeper  yet  that  wailing  comes 
from  the  lonely  huts  on  mountain  and  on  moor,  where 
the  people  of  the  greenest  Island  of  all  the  seas  are  ex- 
piring in  the  midst  of  insufficient  though  world-wide 
charities.  Well  indeed  may  they  deplore  O'Connell, 
for  they  were  his  children  : 
And  he  bore  them        , 

"  A  love  so  vehement,  so  strong,  so  pure, 
That  neither  age  could  change  nor  art  could  cure." 

Again  and  again,  as  if  they  feared  to  disturb  him 
with  excess  of  sorrow,  they  plead : 

"  If  yet  we  keep 
Vigils  of  grief,  and  echo  groan  for  groan, 
'Tis  not  for  thee  ;  but  for  ourselves  we  weep, 
Whose  noblest  pillar  lies  in  thee  o'erthrown." 

The  pageant  pauses.  Next  to  the  Chief  Mourner, 
space  is  opened  for  America,  eldest  of  the  new  born 
Nations.  Why  shall  not  America  accept  that  distin- 
guished privilege?  O'Connell  was  a  champion  of 
Universal  Constitutional  Freedom.  That  is  her  own 
cause — all  her  own.  She  arms  and  instructs  and  sends 
forth  all  its  chieftains ;  and  when  one  of  them  falls  in 
the  ever-continuing  conflict,  be  his  faith,  his  tongue  or 
his  lineage  what  it  may :  whether  he  die  on  the  snowy 
plains  of  Poland,  among  the  classic  Islands  of  Greece, 
under  the  bright  skies  of  Italy,  among  the  vine-clad 
hills  of  France,  or  in  the  green  valleys  of  Ireland  ;  be  he 
Kosciusko,  or  Bozzaris,  or  La  Fayette,  or  O'Connell, 


America  hastens  to  bear  witness  that  he  was  her  Sol- 
dier, Citizen  and  Representative. 

Panegyric  commonly  begins  its  picture  by  calling  up 
revered  ancestral  shadows  from  long- forgotten  graves, 
to  fill  the  back-ground ;  and  then  surrounds  its  hero 
with  contemporaneous  forms  of  kindred  greatness.  But 
there  are  figures  so  majestic  as  to  exclude  from  the 
canvass  all  living  companionship,  while  they  derive 
no  grandeur  from  being  grouped  with  even  the  awful 
forms  of  the  ilhistrious  dead.  Such  is  every  one,  who, 
by  permission  of  Providence,  the  devotion  of  his  own 
soul,  and  the  consent  given  by  his  fellow  men,  or  ex- 
torted from  them,  losing  his  own  individuality,  becomes 
for  a  period  the  representative  of  a  race,  a  people,  a 
nation,  or  it  may  be  of  many  races,  peoples  or  nations. 
You  recognize  Napoleon  in  the  brilliant  scene  of  his 
Coronation,  in  Notre  Dame^  or  when  taking  leave  of 
his  veterans  at  Fontainebleau ;  but  you  are  transported 
with  awe  or  pity,  when  you  contemplate  him  among 
the  solitudes  of  the  frozen  Alps,  or  looking  off  on  the 
imprisoning  sea  from  the  inaccessible  cliffs  oiSt.  Helena. 
You  perceive  the  serene  dignity  of  Washington  in  the 
picture  that  commemorates  his  acceptance  of  his  dan- 
gerous commission  in  the  halls  of  the  Continental  Con- 
gress ;  and  you  weep  when  he  is  seen  dismissing  his 
unrewarded  though  triumphant  army  on  the  Heights 
of  the  Hudson.  But  your  soul  is  overpowered  Avith 
his  greatness  when  you  come  to  the  uncanopied  place 
where  Greenough's  accurate  taste,  banishing  even  the 
drapery  of  the  living  age,  presents  to  you  the  Father 
of  his  Country  in  colossal  marble,  alone. 

From  the  beginning  there  have  been  two  conditions 


of  Man ;  and  these  in  perpetual  opposition  ;  Force  and 
Resistance;  two  agencies  working  out  his  destiny. 
Power  and  Freedom,  and  these  in  unceasing  conflict ; 
two  elements  of  Government,  Aristocracy  and  Democ- 
racy, and  these  in  everlasting  war.  Nations  inspire 
us  with  awe,  or  hate,  or  reverence,  or  sympathy,  as 
they  sustain  one  or  the  other  of  these  conditions,  exert 
one  or  the  other  of  these  agencies,  manifest  one  or  the 
other  of  these  elements.  The  Man  who  for  a  time  be- 
comes substituted  for  a  Nation,  is  clothed  in  our  regard 
with  the  national  attributes.  The  people  of  Ireland, 
during  near  seven  hundred  years,  have  maintained  a 
conflict  for  our  common  race,  of  Resistance  against 
Force,  Freedom  against  Power,  Right  against  Usur- 
pation. Through  more  than  twenty  years  of  that  con- 
flict, Daniel  O'Connell  was  the  impersonation  of  that 
people, 

"  A  Nation  in  a  Man  comprls'd." 

In  this  consists  the  secret  of  the  interest  he  excited 
while  living,  and  of  all  his  fame  now  that  he  lives  no 
more.  It  is  his  Country,  therefore,  and  only  his  Coun- 
try— as  she  was,  as  she  is,  and  as  she  is  to  be — that 
must  be  regarded,  if  we  would  fully  comprehend  and 
truly  know  the  character  of  O'Connell. 

Ireland  was  long  ago  an  independent  nation,  gov- 
erned by  a  King  and  Council  or  Parliament,  and  was 
divided  into  inferior  Kingdoms  and  subordinate  Sects 
or  Clans.  It  had  population  and  revenues  equal  to 
what  were  generally  possessed  by  other  States  in  the 
same  age.  One  of  its  inhabitants  thus  described  the 
Kingdom  a  thousand-  years  ago : 


8 

"  Far  westward  lies  an  isle  of  ancient  fame. 
By  Nature  bless'd — Hibernia  is  her  name 
Enroll'd  in  books — exbaustless  is  ber  store 
Of  veiny  silver  and  of  golden  ore. 
Her  fruitful  soil  forever  teems  witb  wealth, 
With  gems  her  waters,  and  her  air  with  health ; 
Her  verdant  fields  with  milk  and  honey  flow, 
Her  wooly  fleeces  vie  with  virgin  snow ; 
Her  waving  furrows  float  with  bended  corn, 
And  arms  and  arts  her  envied  sons  adorn. 
No  poison  there  infects,  nor  scaly  snake 
Creeps  through  the  grass  or  settles  in  the  lake. 
A  nation  worthy  of  its  pious  race — 
In  war  triumphant,  and  unmatched  in  peace." 

Ireland  had  then  a  Court  in  which  Learning  was 
honored  next  to  Royalty;  a  Church  that  sent  forth 
Missionaries  who  converted  a  large  portion  of  Western 
Europe;  Laws  that  divided  estates  of  the  dead  with 
equal  justice  ;  that  gave  the  trial  by  Jury — the  Anglo- 
Saxon's  boast;  that  ordained  inns  for  the  entertain- 
ment of  travelers  at  the  public  expense,  and  that  knew 
only  one  capital  or  unpardonable  crime.  And  it  was 
treason  and  sacrilege  to  change  those  laws.  There 
were  trained  bands  which  were  sworn  to  resist  even  a 
seven-fold  foe;  Knights  who  won  renown  for  valor 
and  courtesy  on  the  Plains  of  Palestine,  and  Dames 
who  were  honored  by  admiring  Bards  and  Minstrels  in 
strains  like  these : 

"  The  daughter  of  Moran  seized  the  harp  ! 
And  her  voice  of  music  praised  the  strangers. 
Their  soul  melted  at  the  song 
Like  a  wreath  of  snow  before  the  eye  of  the  sun." 

I  speak  no  interested,  no  partial,  no  imaginative  eu- 


logy.     It  is  the  testimony  of  General  History  as  ac- 
credited by  modern  Learning. 

Alas  !  How  unlike  is  this  picture  to  Ireland  now,  in 
an  age  ten  fold  more  enlightened  and  humane !  What 
has  wrought  this  change?  Has  Ireland  degenerated, 
or  has  she  been  degraded  and  debased  by  foreign  power? 
Did  Ireland  struggle,  or  did  she  resign  herself  to  ruin? 
Listen,  and  you  shall  hear. 

Separated  by  only  an  ocean  channel,  and  colonized 
originally  by  the  same  Celtic  race,  the  Islands  of  Bri- 
tain and  Ireland  have  been  distinguished  by  fortunes 
as  wide  as  the  Poles.  Britain,  conquered  by  the  Ro- 
mans, the  Danes,  the  Saxons  and  the  Normans,  de- 
rived from  that  severe  experience  the  consolidation, 
discipline,  ambition,  and  energy  which  have  enabled 
it  to  grasp  the  empire  of  the  world.  Ireland,  devoted 
to  Piety  and  Learning,  remaining  long  unconquered 
and  unconquerable,  and  unmoved  by  cupidity  or  am- 
bition, was  early  distracted  by  factions,  and  finally 
betrayed  by  them  to  a  conqueror. 

In  the  twelfth  century  Henry  II.,  a  Norman,  King 
of  England,  who  held  the  refinements  of  life  in  much 
contempt,  "cast  in  his  mind"  to  conquer  the  adjoining 
Island,  "because  it  was  commodious  for  him,  and  its 
people  seemed  to  him  savage  and  rude."  Invited  by  a 
native  Prince  who  had  been  dethroned,  he  appeared  in 
Ireland  with  a  real  or  forged  grant  under  the  seal  of 
Breakspeare,  an  Englishman,  who  occupied  the  Papal 
See  at  Rome,  under  the  name  of  Adrian  IV.  Early  con- 
verted to  Christianity  without  the  blood  of  Martyrs, 
the  Irish  had  nevertheless  been  the  last  to  acknowledge 
the  supremacy  of  Rome.     Having  received  that  article 


10 

of  faith,  they  have  held  it  fast  at  the  cost  of  ages  of 
want;  of  milUons  of  lives,  and  even  of  national  exis- 
tence. Ireland  denied  the  pretensions  of  the  Pope  to 
temporal  power,  and  resisted  the  invader.  Henry  did 
not  reinstate  the  Irish  King,  but  established  on  the  coast 
a  martial  colony,  and  by  virtue  of  this  acquisition, 
which  was  henceforth  called  the  Pale,  he  claimed  to  be 
conqueror  of  the  whole  Island.  A  Royal  Deputy  go- 
verned the  Pale  with  a  Council  of  Nobles  and  Clergy, 
which  afterward  became  a  Parliament,  and  the  little 
domain  was  parceled  out  by  the  King  in  great  estates 
to  Court  favorites  and  military  adventurers.  The  Aris- 
t-ocracy  of  England  was  thus  by  fraud  and  force  planted 
in  the  Island  of  Saints,  as  it  was  then  reverently  called. 
Thenceforth  its  veins  of  silver  and  its  dust  of  gold,  the 
rubies  of  its  lakes,  the  grain  in  its  waving  furrows,  and 
the  flocks  on  its  thousand  hills,  were  to  pass  away  from 
its  harmless  people,  to  pamper  despotic  and  insatiable 
Lords.  That  august  Court,  those  ancient  seminaries, 
those  valiant  bands,  those  chivalrous  Knights,  that 
Cynosure  of  Beauty  and  the  Bards  who  so  worthily 
celebrated  it,  faded,  declined  and  were  lost  forever. 

The  establishment  of  the  Pale  enfeebled  Ireland,  al- 
though the  Colony  was  utterly  incompetent  to  subju- 
gate the  Kingdom.  The  Colonists  claimed  to  be  masters 
of  the  Island.  The  Irish,  with  the  British  Power  in 
the  heart  of  the  country,  asserted  their  sovereignty  and 
independence.  Hence  resulted  a  division  which,  per- 
petuated until  now,  has  involved  both  in  a  common 
ruin.  The  distinction  between  the  natives  and  the 
invaders  was  graven  broad  and  deep  by  these  conflict- 
ing titles,  and  by  perpetual  Avars,  inveterate  policy  and 


11 

clashing  codes.  The  Government  of  England  acknowl- 
edged only  the  English  inhabitants  of  the  Pale  as  lawful 
subjects,  and  denounced  the  natives  as  "Aliens,"  "Wild 
Irish,"  and  '•  Enemies."  Magna  Charta  and  the  Com- 
mon Law  were  introduced  within  the  Pale,  but  their 
protection  was  denied  to  the  natives,  while  they  were 
subjected  to  the  power  of  the  English  Courts.  The 
Irish  language  and  costume  were  inhibited  ;  intermar- 
riages forbidden,  and  naturahzation  under  English 
laws  denied.  It  was  made  lawful  to  kill  an  Irishman 
on  suspicion,  without  trial  or  process,  and  unlawful  to 
entertain  an  Irish  minstrel,  to  keep  an  Irish  servant,  or 
to  feed  an  Irish  horse.  The  native  Princes,  Nobles  and 
Knights,  within  the  colony,  were  trodden  down,  and 
the  wretched  people  expelled  on  the  one  hand  as  aliens 
and  rebels  from  their  rightful  possessions,  and  on  the 
other  by  the  native  Septs  into  whose  hands  they  were 
driven,  were  thus  rendered  houseless  and  desperate. 
Outlaws  by  statute  and  by  proclamation,  they  formed 
themselves  from  necessity  into  predatory  bands,  and 
descending  from  the  mountains,  made  reprisals  on  the 
Pale  and  carried  the  war  of  fierce  retaliation  to  the  very 
gates  of  its  cities. 

The  lust  of  power  soon  discovered  and  opened  that 
fountain  whose  bitter  floods  no  art  can  stay  nor  purify. 
Ambitious  Dublin  robbed  Armagh,  the  Arch-Episcopal 
see,  of  its  treasures  and  sacred  relics.  The  King  of 
England  rewarded  the  sacrilege  with  ecclesiastical  au- 
thority over  the  island ;  proscribed  from  the  ministry 
the  natives  who  denounced  the  usurpation ;  and  the 
English  Church  Avithin  the  Pale  set  the  stamp  of  its 
approbation  on  the  policy  of  the  Government,  by  the 


12 

atrocious  dogma  that  it  was  not  a  sin  to  kill  an  Irish- 
man. 

But  it  remained  for  the  Tudors,  the  Commonweahh 

and  the  Guelphs,  to  sound  the  depths  of  Fanaticism. 
Ahhough  the  ParUament  of  England  vacillated  long 
with  the  policy  and  caprice  of  the  Court,  the  conversion 
of  the  people  of  that  country  to  the  tenets  of  the  Re- 
formation resulted  from  a  conviction  that  the  Religion 
of  Luther  was  true.  The  Catholic  Church  there  was 
subverted.  But  England  was  in  some  sort  connected 
with  Ireland,  and  she  must  be  converted  in  order  that 
a  superstitious  prophecy  might  be  fulfilled,  which 
taught  that  the  Chair  of  St.  Peter  would  fall  when  Ire- 
land should  cease  to  sustain  it,  and  to  the  end  also  that 
Rome  should  not  regain  her  ascendency  in  England 
through  the  agency  of  Catholic  Ireland.  England  sent, 
to  convert  Ireland,  not  missionaries,  but  the  sword.  Re- 
jecting the  Catholic  Ritual  because  it  was  expressed  in 
an  unknown  tongue,  she  sent  the  English  Prayer-book 
to  a  people  ignorant  of  that  language,  and  employed  a 
ferocious  soldiery  to  illustrate  its  real  simplicity  and 
beauty.  The  Parliament  of  the  Pale,  like  the  sun- 
flower, turned  its  revolving  face  to  catch  the  Ro^^al 
smile,  and  received  from  Henry  YIIL,  Edward  VI., 
Mary  and  Elizabeth,  successively,  a  different  religion 
with  the  same  cheerful  loyalty  that  it  greeted  "  the  new 
superscription  and  image  of  each  on  the  coin  of  the 
Kingdom."  The  Irish  preferred  their  own  long  cher- 
ished religion  to  tliat  so  rudely  and  inconsistently  re- 
commended to  them  by  their  enemies.  Thenceforth 
ensued  a  war  of  confiscation  and  massacre  reaching  far 
toward  our  own  time,  and  in  which,   although  the 


13 

parties  remained  unchanged,  the  hostility  of  races  was 
lost  in  the  terrible  conflict  of  religious  sects.  England, 
exasperated  by  the  firmness  of  Ireland,  determined  to 
extirpate  her  heresy  by  exterminating  her  People,  and 
to  supply  their  place  with  more  orthodox  colonies  from 
Scotland  as  well  as  from  the  regions  south  of  the  Tweed. 
The  genius  of  the  versatile  Bacon  was  tasked  to  make 
the  new  plantations  grow,  and  the  funds  to  carry  on 
the  exterminating  war  were  obtained  by  mortgaging 
the  lands  to  be  conquered.  No  mercy  was  shown  even 
to  women  or  children  in  this  war  of  Faith.  The  Irish 
People  fled  before  the  destructive  armies  and  took  re- 
fuge in  caverns.  Subsisting  there  on  the  fruits  of  the 
pasturage  and  on  the  spoils  taken  from  their  invaders, 
they  multiplied  like  the  blades  of  grass,  while  their  ob- 
noxious Faith  became  as  firm  as  their  mountain  homes. 
Then  came  new  armies,  driving  the  natives  down  upon 
the  plains ;  and  when  it  was  found  that  famine  and 
pestilence  involved  both  parties  in  common  destruction, 
the  merciful  concession  was  made  that  the  entire  Cath- 
olic population  of  Ireland  should  be  allowed  a  refuge  in 
a  single  province,  there  to  remain,  on  pain  of  death  if 
found  beyond  its  borders. 

At  length,  in  the  year  of  the  Gospel  of  Peace  on  Earth 
and  Good  Will  toward  Men,  one  thousand  six  hundred 
and  ninety-one,  just  five  hundred  and  twenty  years 
after  the  invasion  by  Henry,  the  wars  which  he  began 
at  first  for  conquest,  and  which  afterwards  became  a 
medley  of  Rapine  and  Fanaticism,  came  to  an  end  by 
the  Treaty  of  Limerick  after  the  Battle  of  the  Boyne. 

"  Wearied  with  tedious  war  they  cease, 
And  both  the  kings  and  kingdoms  plight  the  peace." 


14 

What  were  the  results  of  these  long  and  furious  wars? 
Ireland  was  conquered  at  last,  and  was  despoiled.  The 
Aristocracy  of  England  were  owners  and  masters  in 
Ireland,  and  its  native  possessors  were  tenants,  servants 
and  slaves.  The  country  contained  eleven  millions  of 
acres  of  tillable  land.  One  million  were  possessed  by 
Englishmen  who,  having  come  to  convert  Ireland  to 
Luther,  had  relapsed  to  Rome.  Ten  millions  of  acres 
were  the  property  of  English  Protestant  Lords,  and  not 
one  acre  was  left  to  the  native  Celtic  Irishman.  But 
the  People  of  Ireland  had  not  been  exterminated.  They 
constituted  three-fourths  of  the  population,  and  were 
more  numerous  than  ever.  What  then  ?  Had  Ireland 
saved  nothing?  Had  England  gained  everything? 
No  !  The  Aristocracy  of  England  had  gained  a  coun- 
try they  could  not  fill — Ireland  had  saved  her  Faith, 
and  England  had  gained  nothing,  not  even  the  security 
she  had  deemed  essential.  The  Catholic  Religion  re- 
mained unshaken  in  Ireland.  Liberty  of  Conscience 
was  a  condition  of  the  capitulation  at  Limerick,  and 
was  solemnly  guaranteed  by  William  of  Orange  and 
Mary,  the  daughter  of  James. 

Policy  as  well  as  public  faith  now  required  that  the 
conquered  kingdom  should  be  left  in  peace,  that  its 
wasted  strength  should  be  repaired,  that  the  rankling 
wounds  opened  during  centuries  of  persecution  should 
be  healed,  and  that  Ireland  should  be  admitted  to  free 
enjoyment  of  the  civil  rights  guaranteed  by  the  British 
Constitution.  But  Fear  and  Fanaticism  know  no  pol- 
icy suggested  by  Humanity,  and  keep  no  covenants, 
though  they  be  Avritten  in  blood.  England  still  feared 
the  return  of  her  Catholic  Princes,  and  therefore  willed 


15 

that  the  People  of  Ireland,  although  inflexible  in  their 
faith  and  always  loyal  when  not  driven  to  rebellion, 
and  although  they  were  reposing  on  the  Treaty  of  Lim- 
erick, should  nevertheless  be  converted  to  the  Reforma- 
tion. The  object  of  England  remained  the  same,  only 
the  means  were  now  changed,  and  Perfidy  was  added 
to  Persecution.  The  Army  gave  place  to  the  sterner 
Despotism  of  the  Law,  and  the  Sword  to  the  Scaflbld  ; 
a  more  certain  engine  of  destruction. 

Ireland  was  already  subjected  under  a  constitution 
admirably  adapted  to  the  introduction  of  the  Penal  Re- 
ligious Code.  Her  only  Legislature  was  the  Parliament 
of  the  Pale — and  this  semblance  of  a  Legislature  had 
been  deprived  of  Life  by  the  Poynings  law,  which  for- 
bade it  to  assemble  without  the  previous  consent  of  the 
King,  or  to  pass  any  law  not  first  approved  by  him. 
Petitions  from  Ireland  were  inhibited  unless  first  sanc- 
tioned by  the  Royal  Deputy  residing  there,  and  Irish- 
men were  forbidden  to  leave  their  country,  lest  by  their 
complaints  they  might  annoy  the  majesty  of  the  King 
or  disturb  the  equanimity  of  the  Commons  of  England. 
The  Penal  Code  banished  the  Bishop,  the  Priest,  and 
the  Schoolmaster  from  Ireland — forbade  attendance  on 
Catholic  worship  on  pain  of  death  for  perseverance — 
made  the  converting  of  a  Protestant  to  the  Catholic 
Faith  a  felony — annulled  existing  marriages  between 
Catholics  and  Protestants,  and  interdicted  them  in  fu- 
ture— transferred  Catholic  children  of  living  parents  to 
guardians  in  Chancery — closed  against  Catholics  every 
ofiice  of  trust  or  profit  in  the  State,  in  the  Army,  and 
in  the  Navy,  and  in  every  Corporation,  mercantile  or 
municipal — deprived  them  of  the  right  to  be  freehold- 


16 

ers,  the  right  to  vote,  to  maintain  actions  at  law,  to  be 
Jurors,  to  keep  arms  for  self-defence,  to  travel  even 
within  the  kingdom,  to  be  executors  or  guardians, 
and  even  of  the  right  to  keep  a  horse  Avorth  more  than 
five  pounds — robbed  the  Catholic  child  of  its  estate  if 
even  unwillingly  or  unconsciously  instructed  by  a  cath- 
olic at  home  or  abroad — transferred  a  Catholic  parent's 
estate  to  his  abjuring  son — gave  a  separate  maintenance 
to  a  renouncing  wife,  and  emancipated  from  parental 
control  all  Catholic  children  who  would  forsake  the 
family  altar — subjected  Catholic  property  to  seizure  for 
public  purposes  without  compensation,  and  finally  pro- 
vided for  the  execution  of  these  dreadful  laws  by  a 
Judiciary  responsible  to  the  King,  by  Bishops  with 
prisons  in  some  cases,  by  Magistrates  in  others  with 
the  rack  instead  of  the  Jury,  and  in  others  with  Juries 
authorized  to  render  verdicts  at  the  solicitation  of  cor- 
rupt informers  and  on  the  testimony  of  convicted  felons. 
Thus  did  the  Religion  whose  test  is  the  mutual  love  of 
its  disciples,  become  under  Human  Policy, 

"  A  plea  for  sating  the  unnatural  thirst 
For  Murder,  Eapine,  Violence  and  Crime." 

No  language  less  copious,  elaborate  and  accurate  than 
that  of  Edmund  Burke  can  express  the  character  of  this 
extraordinary  code.  "It  is  (said  he)  a  system  full  of 
coherence  and  consistency ;  well  digested  and  well  dis- 
posed in  all  its  parts  ;  a  machine  of  wise  and  elaborate 
contrivance,  well  fitted  for  the  impoverishment  and 
degradation  of  a  people,  and  the  debasement  in  them 
of  Human  Nature  itself" 

This  system  continued  in  its  utmost  possible  efiiciency 


17 

until  the  year  1778,  and,  although  then  somewhat 
modified,  it  remained  in  oppressive  operation  until  the 
year  1829,  a  period  of  one  hundred  and  thirty-nine 
years. 

And  what  were  the  effects  of  the  Penal  Code  and  of 
the  system  which  preceded  it  ?  Ireland  groaned  under 
the  burdens  of  a  foreign  Government  and  of  foreign 
landlords.  Commerce  had  grown  to  be  a  mighty  power 
in  England,  and  commerce  struck  hands  with  fanati- 
cism. Ireland  was  forbidden  all  foreign  trade,  while 
its  manufactories  were  undermined  to  favor  English 
monopoly.  Notwithstanding  the  resources  and  fertility 
of  the  country,  its  wealth  was  exhausted  in  paying 
rents  to  English  landlords,  tithes  to  English  Priests, 
profits  to  English  artisans,  and  taxes  to  the  English 
Government. 

"  For  foreign  Lords  lier  People  sow  their  native  land." 

Poverty  stalked  through  the  Isle.  Half  the  increase 
of  population  was  given  up  to  America  to  fell  the  for- 
ests and  plant  cities  there,  and  the  remainder  was 
reduced  to  subsist  on  an  esculent  root,  the  cheapest 
yielded  by  Nature  to  the  cultivating  hand  of  Man. 
Were  not  the  natives  then  extirpated  ?  Did  they  not 
NOW  renounce  that  odious  Faith  \  No  !  Ireland  had 
increased  its  numbers  by  three-fold.  We  do  not  know 
that  one  parent  had  relinquished  his  creed, — one  wife 
had  forsaken  her  husband, — or  one  child  had  abjured 
the  altar  of  its  forefathers.  Protestantism,  though  nour- 
ished on  plunder,  had  declined,  and  the  Religion  of 
Rome,  watered  by  tears  and  fanned  by  the  blasts  of 
Persecution,  flourished  in  unwonted  and  vigorous  lux- 
uriance. 

2 


18 

This  was  the  condition  of  Ireland  in  1775;  and  now 
our  inquiries  are  answered.  The  People  of  Ireland 
have  not  degenerated.  They  have  been  degraded  from 
their  high  estate,  not  by  their  own  act,  but  by  the 
Aristocracy  of  England.  They  have  resisted  this  de- 
gradation with  heroic  energy,  and  have  resisted  to  the 
last.  The  Aristocracy  of  England  has  usurped  the 
Government  of  Ireland,  and  set  upon  it 

"  The  mark  of  selfishness, 
The  signet  of  its  all-enslaving  power." 

This  was  the  condition  of  that  unhappy  country  in 
the  3^ear  1775,  six  hundred  and  five  years  after  the 
descent  of  Henry,  the  Anglo-Norman  King,  on  its  coast, 
when  two  events  happened,  widely  different  and  dis- 
tant— the  one  in  an  obscure  corner  of  the  Island — the 
other  in  a  remote  part  of  the  British  Empire ;  events 
destined  to  affect  forever  the  condition  not  only  of  Ire- 
land but  of  all  mankind.  British  troops  fired  on  the 
militia  of  Massachusetts  in  Lexington  on  the  19th  of 
April,  1775,  and  Daniel  O'Connell  was  born  at  Carhen 
in  Ireland  on  the  6th  of  August,  in  the  same  ^''ear. 

The  American  Revolution  exhibited  a  triumphant 
resistance  to  the  unconstitutional  legislation  of  the  Im- 
perial Parliament  by  a  portion  of  the  Empire  far  less 
oppressed  than  Ireland,  and  infinitely  more  prosperous 
and  happy.  But  that  Revolution  was  more  than  this  : 
It  vindicated  the  inalienable  and  universal  right  of 
mankind  to  resist  oppression  and  overthrow  tyranny, 
however  established  and  however  long  endured.  It 
was  more  even  than  this  :  It  vindicated  the  inaliena- 
ble and  universal  right  and  capacity  of  mankind  to 


19 

iestablish  and  conduct  Governments  for  themselves  and 
to  change  them  at  pleasure.  It  struck  the  Governments 
of  the  Earth  with  consternation,  and  bewildered  the 
enslaved  masses  of  men  with  hopes  which  were  not 
altogether  illusions  of  Freedom  and  of  Universal  Equal- 
ity. In  the  language  of  La  Fafayette,  America  was  not 
a  solitary  rebel.  She  was  a  Patrol  in  the  cause  of  Hu- 
manity. 

Ireland  not  only  sympathized  profoundly  with  the 
Trans-xltlantic  Colonies  in  their  complaints  of  usurpa- 
tion under  which  she  suffered  more  sorely  than  they, 
but  with  inherent  benevolence  and  ardor  she  yielded 
at  once  to  the  sway  of  the  great  American  Idea  of  Uni- 
versal Emancipation.  The  bitter  memory  of  a  stream 
of  ages  lifted  up  her  thoughts,  and  she  was  ready  to 
follow  to  the  war  for  the  Rights  of  Human  Nature 

"  The  propitious  god  that  seemed  to  lead  the  Avay." 

This  war,  thus  opened  by  America,  is  the  same  strug- 
gle in  which  Ireland  has  been  engaged  ever  since,  in 
which  O'CoNNELL  labored  with  so  much  zeal,  and  force, 
and  success,  and  which  he  has  left  unfinished. 

England  was  soon  at  war  not  only  with  her  Ameri- 
can Colonies,  but  also  with  France  and  Spain  and  Hol- 
land. France  threatened  to  invade  Ireland,  and  Ame- 
rica had  already  led  Ireland  into  a  Revolution.  Left  by 
the  British  Government  to  defend  themselves,  the  Peo- 
ple of  Ireland  gathered  at  once  an  army  of  brave  and 
well-appointed  volunteers,  ready  to  resist  the  threat- 
ened invasion  if  England  would  ^^ield  Independence, 
and  even  more  ready  to  achieve  Independence  if  it 
should  be  refused.     The  influence  of  such  great  events 


20 

exalted  for  a  time  the  virtues  of  the  Irish  People.     The 
Cathohc  forgot  his  pecuhar  wrongs  amid  the  new-born 
hopes  of  his  Comitry  ;  the  Protestant  forgot  his  long- 
cherished  fears.     Now  firmly  miited  and  lifting  with 
them  for  a  brief  period  the  wretched  Legislature  of  the 
Pale,  they  demanded  the  independence  of  that  Parlia- 
ment.   They  preserved  the  forms  of  loyalty,  indeed,  but 
their  resolution  of  rights  was  couched  in  the  language 
of  Freemen,  and  their  petitions  were  written  on  the 
drum-head  and  presented  on  the  point  of  the  bayonet. 
The  British  Parliament  were  confounded.     They  heard 
at  the  same  moment  the  same  principles,  sentiments 
and  resolutions  from  Jefferson  and  Adams,  and  Jay 
and  Franklin  in  the  Congress  of  America,  from  Grattan 
and  Flood  in  the  Parliament  of  Ireland,  and  from  Chat- 
ham, the  Tribune  of  the  whole  Empire,  within  their 
own  Halls.     They  evaded,  then  conciliated,  and  at 
last  conceded.     In  1778  the  provisions  of  the  Penal 
Code  concerning  the  rights  of  Property  and  Educa- 
tion were  relaxed.     Other  concessions  of  the  same  sort 
followed  in  1782 ;  and  in  the  same  year,  when  the  ex- 
igency became  more  alarming,  Ireland  was  restored  to 
Independence  by  a  Declaration  of  the  British  Parlia- 
ment that  "  The  Rights  claimed  by  the  People  of  that 
Island,  to  be  bound  only  by  laws  enacted  by  his  Ma- 
jesty and  the  Parliament  of  that  kingdom,  should  be  and 
then  were  established,  and  should  at  no  time  thereafter 
be  questioned  or  questionable."    Ireland,  always  mode- 
rate, always  confiding,  was  content  with  this  conces- 
sion, which  left  her  a  distinct  Kingdom,  independent 
of  Britain,  but  united  to  that  country  through  a  com- 
mon Protestant  Throne.     Then  as  her  heart  SAvelled 


21 

with  the  memories  of  the  glories  of  other  days,  and 
opened  to  visions  of  brighter  glories  in  the  future,  she 
clasped  her  sister  England  with  gratitude,  pride  and 
affection,  forgetting  the  injuries  of  six  hundred  years. 
Did  ever  the  earth  exhibit  a  scene  of  truer  National 
Magnanimity ! 

But  Ireland  in  1782  was  only  Independent,  as  Ame- 
rica was  in  the  same  period.  It  yet  remained  in  each 
country  to  establish  and  secure  the  liberties  of  the  Peo- 
ple. This  was  done  here  by  the  erection  of  the  Fede- 
ral Republican  Constitution  of  1787,  which,  although 
reared  amid  doubts  and  fears,  has  gained  stability  with 
time,  and  has,  as  we  ardently  hope,  become  eternal. 

But  the  Parliament  of  Dublin  remained  in  Ireland. 
It  was  no  less  now,  than  before,  the  engine  of  the 
usurping  aristocracy  of  England.  Its  virtues  had  ex- 
pired in  the  throes  of  its  new  birth.  No  Constitution 
could  be  obtained  without  the  consent  of  the  Parlia- 
ment of  the  Pale — a  Parliament  in  which  three-fourths 
of  the  People  had  not  a  shadow  of  representation,  and 
the  other  portion  had  only  a  shadow.  In  the  face  of 
an  armed  convention  of  the  People,  and  in  the  midst 
of  universal  commotion,  the  Parliament  of  Dublin  re- 
fused a  Constitution  to  Ireland  !  Already  all  that  had 
been  gained  was  lost,  but  the  shadow  of  Independence, 
and  that  was  sure  to  follow  soon.  The  patriots  of  Ire- 
land hastened  from  the  hated  halls  of  the  Parliament 
of  the  Pale  with  deep  disgust,  and  rushing  to  the  altars 
of  Liberty,  applied  themselves  to  wake  again  its  sleep- 
ing fires.  The  Revolution  was  once  more  set  in  mo- 
tion, but  the  ball  had  nearly  spent  its  force.  The  men 
of  '98j  brave  and  true,  attempted  under  circumstances 


/ 


22 

of  extreme  difficulty  to  prepare  a  doubtful  war.  The 
Irish  People  were  again  dissevered  by  the  same  ever- 
lasting cause  of  faction — the  foreign  aristocracy  in  their 
bosom.  Although  the  gallant  leaders  were  Protes- 
tants, yet  the  mass  of  Protestants  supported  the  Par- 
liament. The  Catholic  clergy  saw  the  hopelessness  of 
conflict  and  shuddered  at  the  calamities  it  portended  to 
a  faithful  and  already  deeply  wretched  people.  Eng- 
land had  recovered  her  giant  energies.  The  thunders 
of  the  American  Revolution  slept ;  an  ambitious,  licen- 
tious, and  ferocious  Faction  reigned  in  Paris,  and 
blasphemy,  claiming  the  name  of  liberty,  was  threat- 
ening to  involve  the  world  in  anarchy.  Nevertheless, 
there  was  no  hope  for  Ireland  but  in  aid  from  France, 
and  in  the  arms  of  her  own  people.  The  insarrection 
was  planned  with  skill  and  secrecy,  but  Treason 
gained  access  to  its  councils  and  fomented  it  to  a  pre- 
cocious maturity.  Then  it  broke  forth  only  to  betray 
its  heroic  leaders  to  the  scaflbld,  and  their  patriotic  as- 
sociates throughout  the  island,  to  massacre  indiscrim- 
inate and  merciless. 

Yet  the  Rebellion  of  '98  was  not  altogether  unavail- 
ing. Every  drop  that  streams  from  the  veins  of  a  mar- 
tyr in  the  cause  of  Liberty,  is  gathered  again  by  Him 
who  wills  that  all  his  children  shall  be  free,  and  is 
poured  into  the  heart  of  some  new-born  champion, 
imparting  more  than  human  vigor  to  the  arm  of  the 
avenger. 

The  British  Government  now  asserted  that  Ireland 
had  tried  the  responsibilities  of  Government,  and  had 
proved  herself  incompetent.  They  disarmed  the  peo- 
ple, established  martial  law,  falsely  promised  specious 


23 

favors  to  the  Catholics^  and  showered  gold  and  power 
on  the  Protestants,  and  thus,  in  1800,  the  eighteenth 
year  of  Irish  Independence,  obtained  from  the  Parha- 
ment  of  the  Pale  the  surrender  of  its  infamous  exist- 
ence. Ireland,  fettered  and  manacled  more  than  ever 
before,  was  annexed  to  Great  Britain  by  the  Act  of 
Union. 

A  gloomy  period  of  twenty  years  succeeded.  Ty- 
ranny scarcely  feared  resistance.  Penury  had  taken  up 
her  home  in  the  land.  Turbulence  was  abroad,  but  only 
to  reconcile  the  people  to  any  Government  that  would 
suppress  disorder.  Wealth  and  learning,  warmed  at 
the  root  with  the  unnatural  heat  of  Royal  favor,  lost 
their  independent  attitude,  and  putting  forth  parasitic 
tendrils,  twined  in  sickly  growth  around  the  pillars  of 
the  State.  The  Peasantry  took  on  the  habit  and  gait 
of  slaves.  The  voice  of  orators  was  heard  only  in 
subdued  complaints ;  the  clang  of  arms  had  ceased. 
Even  the  National  Harp,  that  still  retained  its  ancient 
sweetness,  though  trodden  under  foot  by  tyrants,  forgot 
the  wild  inspiration  of  Freedom,  and  only  gave  forth 
plaintive  notes  when  struck  by  the  hand  of  Despair. 

"  Alas  for  our  Country  !  Her  pride  has  gone  by, 
And  the  spirit  is  broken  that  never  would  bend ; 
O'er  the  ruin  her  children  in  secret  must  sigh, 
For  'tis  treason  to  love  her,  and  death  to  defend." 

If  a  hope  could  have  arisen  in  the  patriot's  heart,  it 
would  have  been  dispelled  by  a  glance  at  the  condi- 
tion of  England.  She  had  made  ample  reprisals  in 
the  West  Indies,  in  North  America,  in  Asia,  in  Africa, 
and  in  the  South  Seas,  for  the  loss  of  the  thirteen  re- 


24 

bellious  colonies ;  Waterloo  had  prostrated  at  her  feet 
her  great  natural  enemy;  Spain  had  entered  on  her 
dotage:  Holland  had  relinquished  her  ambition.  The 
British  Navy  held  almost  undisputed  sway  over  the 
seaSj  and  British  garrisons  encircled  the  globe. 

How  mysterious  and  inscrutable  are  the  ways  of 
Providence  in  conducting  the  affairs  of  nations  !  That 
season  of  gloom  so  intense,  was  the  hour  that  preceded 
the  dawn  of  Irish  Liberty.  It  was  no  matter  how 
Avide  the  Empire,  or  how  vast  the  Armies  or  Navies 
of  Britain,  Ireland  was  to  be  delivered  by  Opinion,  not 
by  the  Sword — by  the  Statesman,  not  by  the  Soldier. 

That  Statesman  was  the  first  fruit  of  the  cautious 
concessions  concerning  Property  and  Education,  made 
by  England  in  1778  and  1782.  Daniel  O'Connell,  a 
Roman  Catholic,  heir-appparent  of  Darrynane,  had 
been  instructed  in  the  faith  of  his  forefathers  and 
trained  for  the  Forum.  The  force  which  he  was  to 
employ  for  the  redemption  of  his  country  was  the  fruit 
of  concession  made  in  1792  in  order  to  secure  the  act 
of  Union.  The  Right  of  Suffrage  was  then  conferred 
on  Catholics  in  Ireland  having  freeholds  of  the  annual 
value  of  forty  shillings.  Then,  and  long  afterward, 
the  right  was  indeed  useless,  and  Suffrage  was  yielded 
with  the  rents  due  to  the  superior  Lords.  But  the 
Right  was  there. 

The  political  education  of  the  Liberator  was  that 
History  of  Ireland  whose  spirit  we  have  endeavored, 
perhaps  vainly,  to  recall.  He  had  witnessed  with  hor- 
ror the  desecration  of  Liberty  and  Religion  in  France, 
and  thus,  while  he  was  imbued  with  the  purest  senti- 
ments of  Patriotism,  he  was  not  less  firmly  estabhshed 


25 

Iq  religious  principles.     He  was  never  for  a  moment 
tempted  to  divide  what  he  thought  God  had  indissolu- 
bly  combined,  Religion  and  Freedom.     He  first  ap- 
peared before  his  countrymen  at  the  age  of  twenty-five, 
at  a  meeting  of  Catholics  in  1800  in  the  midst  of  an  in- 
timidating police,  to  consider  the  Act  of  Union,  then 
before  the  Parliament  in  College  Green.     His  speech, 
which  was  "  a  great  beginning  in  so  green  an  age," 
revealed  the  principles  on  which,  near  thirty  years 
afterward,  he  worked  out  Catholic  Emancipation,  and 
brought  the  Independence  of  Ireland  to  the  verge  of 
triumph.     These  principles  were  the  combination  of 
those  two  measures  and  the  Union  of  the  People  of 
Ireland  by  conciliation. 

''  Let  us  show  (said  he)  to  every  friend  of  Ireland, 
that  Catholics  are  incapable  of  selling  their  country ; 
that  if  their  Emancipation  was  offered  for  their  con- 
sent to  the  Act  of  Union,  (even  if  Emancipation  were 
a  benefit  after  the  Union,)  they  would  reject  it  with 
prompt  indignation.  Let  us  show  to  Ireland  that  we 
have  nothing  in  view  but  her  good,  nothing  in  our 
hearts  but  the  desire  of  mutual  forgiveness  and  mutual 
reconciliation.  Let  every  man  who  agrees  with  me 
proclaim  that  if  the  alternative  were  offered  him  of  the 
Union,  or  the  re-enactment  of  the  Penal  Code  in  all  its 
pristine  horrors,  he  would  prefer  the  latter  as  the  lesser 
or  more  sufferable  evil ;  that  he  would  confide  in  the 
justice  of  his  brethren,  the  Protestants  of  Ireland,  rather 
than  lay  his  country  at  the  feet  of  foreigners." 

We  know  not  when  the  great  scheme  of  delivering 
his  country  first  occured  to  O'Connell,  but  his  life  was 
a  continual  preparation  for  the  enterprise. 


26 

*'  He  wandered  through  the  wrecks  of  days  departed, 
And  dwellings  of  a  race  of  mightier  men, 
And  monuments  of  less  ungentle  creeds, 
Tell  their  own  tale  to  Him  who  rightly  heeds 
The  language  which  they  speak." 

On  such  occasions  the  patriot  would  exclaim,  with 
a  heart  beating  loud  and  fast, 

"  It  shall  be  thus  no  more.     Too  lonix,  too  lono-, 
Sons  of  the  glorious  Dead !  have  ye  lain  bound. 
In  Darkness  and  in  Kuin.     Hope  is  strong ; 
Justice  and  Truth  their  winged  child  have  found. 
Awake  !  Arise  !  until  the  misrhtv  sound 
Of  your  career  shall  scatter  in  its  gust 
The  throne  of  the  oppressor." 

The  new  revolution  began  in  no  popular  excitement, 
for  the  People  were  roused,  not  without  long,  vehe- 
ment and  incessant  agitation.  It  had  no  foreign  im- 
pulse. America  was  at  rest,  and  France,  and  even  all 
Europe,  were  slumbering  in  the  arms  of  Legitimate 
Monarchy.  It  was  not  a  Military  Insurrection;  for 
Sedition  had  been  tried  for  the  last  time.  It  depended 
not  on  the  Irish  People  alone,  for  they  were  nearly 
powerless.  It  must  be  effected  by  the  British  King  and 
Parliament,  and  they  could  be  moved  only  by  Moral 
force,  or  Opinion.  The  objects  of  the  Revolution  must 
be  divided.  Liberty  of  Conscience,  or  Catholic  Eman- 
cipation, must  be  demanded  first.  The  Independence 
of  Ireland,  or  Civil  Liberty,  must  be  attained  after- 
ward. If  both  were  demanded  at  once,  neither  would 
be  granted. 

Daniel  O'Connell  knew  that  sucli  a  Revolution  was 
possible,  and  in  this  knowledge  excelled  his  country 


27 

and  his  age.  When  that  knowledge  was  acquired,  he 
stood  confessed  to  himself,  the  Statesman  of  the  Revo- 
lution.    From  that  hour  he  expanded,  and 

"  Bore  aloft  the  Fame  and  Fortunes  of  his  Race." 

But  how  should  Opinion  be  directed  with  effect  ? 
Burke  and  Fox,  Canning  and  Brougham  and  Byron, 
had  pleaded  for  Catholic  Emancipation  in  the  British 
Senate;  had  shown  the  absurdity,  the  unrighteousness 
and  the  inhumanity  of  the  Penal  Religious  Code,  and 
had  demonstrated  that  it  was  only  less  ruinous  to  Pro- 
testants and  to  England  than  to  Catholics  and  to  Ire- 
land. The  British  Parliament  were  already  convinced. 
Reason,  argument  and  conviction  would  not  be  enough. 
The  British  Government  must  be  made  to  fear  and 
tremble.  But  how  should  Opinion  be  made  so  poten- 
tial? 

It  must  begin  with  Ireland,  a  country  divided  by 
faction  and  sunk  in  despair.  And  if  Ireland  should  be- 
come unanimous,  what  then?  She  had  only  twenty- 
seven  Barons  in  the  House  of  Lords,  while  Great  Bri- 
tain had  nearly  four  hundred.  Ireland  had  only  one 
hundred  Delegates  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  not 
one  true  representative.  Great  Britain  had  five  hun- 
dred representatives  there.  The  Church  of  England, 
standing  on  the  ruins  that  were  to  be  restored,  was  one 
of  the  great  estates  of  the  Empire.  Even  if  all  these 
obstacles  should  be  surmounted,  there  stood  the  King, 
pledged  and  bound  as  he  thought  by  his  Coronation 
Oath  to  reject  the  Bill  for  the  Liberty  of  Conscience. 
But  even  the  Catholic  Church  and  Clergy  were  not 
yet  reliable.     Britain  was  continually  temporising,  and 


28 

Rome  seemed  not  unwilling  to  compromise,  and  so  di- 
vide the  Irish  People. 

The  Agitator  needed  therefore  character  and  position 
which  would  enable  him  to  speak  with  some  show  of 
authority  to  the  People  of  Ireland.  Catholics  and  Pro- 
testants, Clergy  and  Laity, — to  the  King,  Lords,  Com- 
mons and  People  of  England, — to  Rome  herself,  and  to 
an  impartial  World. 

What  then  were  O'Connell's  character  and  position  1 
He  was  a  British  subject,  a  member  of  the  Catholic 
Church,  and  a  lawyer  in  the  Four  Courts  of  Dublin — 
merely  a  lawyer,  a  Catholic  and  a  subject ;  and  while 
Catholics  remained  disqualified  he  could  be  no  more 
than  this. 

He  determined  to  invest  that  humble  and  obscure 
character  and  that  position  with  power  and  strength ; 
and  this  power  and  strength  Avere  to  be  obtained  from 
the  consent  of  the  Clergy  and  of  his  countrymen. 

So  bold  a  Reformer  needed  rare  powers  and  qualities, 
and  needed  them  in  extraordinary  combination.  He 
must  have  transcendent  genius  to  conceive  so  great  an 
action — courage  to  dare  the  attempt — energy  to  pursue 
it — moderation  to  conciliate — pacific  temper  to  avoid 
irritations  to  force — prudence  and  sagacity  to  circum- 
vent the  strategy  of  the  adversary — sympathy  with 
Catholic  Ireland  to  be  its  organ — reverence  for  the 
Clergy  to  gain  their  influence — loyalty  to  the  British 
Constitution  to  disarm  those  who  converted  it  into  an 
engine  of  oppression — ardent  and  impulsive  eloquence 
to  rouse  illiterate  and  unreflecting  masses — logical  acu- 
men and  rhetorical  power  to  confute  sophistry  and  con- 
vince the  learned — tact  and  address  to  gain  coadjutors 


29 

and  hold  them  in  their  proper  spheres — patience  in 
bearing  the  insolence  of  offended  power,  and  the  timid- 
ity, waywardness  and  caprice  of  popular  masses; — 
and  with  all  these  he  must  combine  a  devotion  which 
would  make  the  great  enterprise  the  sole  business  of  a 
whole  life.  Providence  guards  against  the  collisions  of 
mighty  minds  by  allowing  to  exist  only  one  at  any  one 
time,  capable  of  conducting  a  nation  in  a  great  emer- 
gency. 

There  was  only  one  WashingtoxN  in  America,  and 
there  could  be  only  one  O'Connell  in  Ireland. 

Time  and  experience  ripened  the  Liberator.  The 
Bar  of  Dublin  opposed  the  young  Reformer.  He  ex- 
posed their  mercenary  spirit  and  cast  the  lierd  behind 
him.  The  Corporation  of  Dublin  sent  a  champion  who 
called  him  to  the  field  of  combat.  He  slew  the  super- 
cilious adversary  and  pensioned  his  widow ;  and, 
mourning  over  his  almost  involuntary  crime,  trampled 
thenceforth  under  his  feet  the  false  code  of  Honor.  He 
claimed  nothing  for  himself,  and  even  less  than  an  equal 
share  of  political  power  for  his  Catholic  countrymen. 

"  Xon  ego,  nee  Teucris  Italos  parere  jubebo ; 
Nee  mihi  regna  peto ;  paribus  se  legibus  ambaa 
Junctae  gentes  etema  in  foedera  mittant." 

Opposition,  oppression,  even  imprisonment,  tcould 
not  extort  from  him  a  breath  of  disloyalty  to  the  throne, 
nor  even  to  the  Protestant  succession.  He  maintained 
inflexibly  that  the  Deliverance  of  Ireland  would  be 
hazarded  by  a  single  crime,  and  lost  by  the  sacrifice  of 
a  single  life.  He  detected  with  piercing  sight  the  de- 
fects of  laws  designed  to  counteract  the  Revolution, 


30 

and  organized  all  Ireland  on  a  basis  as  narrow  as  the 
technicality  of  a  special  plea.  Fervid  and  vehement, 
he  carried  with  him  the  passions  of  the  People,  as  a 
cloud  that  covered  his  person,  whenever  he  discoursed 
to  them  of  his  great  theme;  perspicacious  and  delibe- 
rate, he  won  the  admiration  of  mankind  by  the  pro- 
foundness of  his  testimony  before  a  British  Parliament 
concerning  the  evils  of  Oppression.  He  waited  imper- 
turbably  to  mature  his  preparations,  and  watched 
unceasingly  for  the  hour  when  his  opponents  should 
be  enfeebled  by  faction.  A  lineal  descendant  of  op- 
pressed generations,  and  a  living  and  majestic  mark  of 
perpetual  persecution  for  conscience  sake,  every  physi- 
cal and  moral  element  of  his  constitution  confessed  the 
Celtic  stock.  ''Strong  from  the  cradle  and  of  sturdy 
brood,"  his  stature,  complexion,  gait,  gestures,  voice 
and  attitude  betrayed  him  for  an  Irishman  of  unmingled 
blood.  Cheerful  even  to  constant  hilarity,  and  gener- 
ous to  self-destitution,  he  was  the  depository  of  all  the 
public  and  the  private  griefs  of  his  countrymen.  He 
relieved  their  wants  if  possible,  and,  if  impossible,  taught 
them  how  to  endure  privation.  When  they  fell  inad- 
vertently under  the  power  of  the  law,  and  even  when 
they  wilfully  rushed  into  its  grasp  against  his  advice, 
he  flung  himself  between  them  and  the  prosecution  and 
bore  them  off  in  triumph.  His  industry  and  assiduity 
never  relaxed,  although  the  cares  not  only  of  a  Revo- 
lutionary state,  but  of  every  suffering  member  of  it,  fell 
upon  his  shoulders.  He  scorned  allurements  to  wealth 
which  might  divide  him  from  the  People ;  subsisted  on 
such  rewards  of  his  own  labors  as  could  be  obtained 
without  neglecting  Ireland ;  and  when  the  country  re- 


31 

quired  his  exclusive  devotion,  he  rejected  pension  and 
place  offered  by  the  Government,  and  with  distinguished 
magnanimity  relied  for  his  daily  support  on  the  unso- 
licited and  voluntary  contributions  of  his  countrymen. 

Thus  endowed,  trained  and  disciplined,  O'Connell 
found  the  Irish  heart  an  instrument  which  answered  to 
his  slightest  touch,  for  ''he  knew  the  strings  in  which 
its  music  dwelt."  He  tuned  it  anew  to  its  ancient 
themes  of  patriotism  and  piety. 

At  length  the  old  King  of  England,  after  a  long,  liv- 
ing death,  was  gathered  to  the  garner-house  of  the 
grave.  An  odious  Ministry  was  found  in  England 
under  an  odious  Prince.  Mendicity  had  driven  the  ar- 
tisans and  laborers  of  England  to  mutiny.  The  pro- 
pitious hour  for  agitation  had  come,  and  Daniel  O'Con- 
nell broke  forth  before  the  world  "Monarch  of  Ireland." 
He  was  a  King  none  the  less  though  the  "  stone  of  des- 
tiny" had  been  removed  from  Tara's  Hall  to  West- 
minster Abbey — a  King  without  sacerdotal  unction, 
royal  descent,  election  or  usurpation — a  King  without 
a  crown,  a  court  or  guards — a  King  by  consent  of  cler- 
gy and  laity — a  very  King  of  seven  millions,  standing 
erect  before  the  Imperial  Throne,  with  power  to  levy 
armies  to  maintain  Avar  and  to  conclude  peace — a  King 
who  could  arrest  the  laws  of  England  or  let  them  go  to 
execution — a  King  who  could  keep  his  subject  people 
in  perpetual  endurance,  or  let  them  forth  at  pleasure  to 
a  carnival  of  revenge. 

O'Connell  was  no  longer  the  mere  lawyer,  subject 
and  Catholic,  but,  retaining  all  those  characters  and 
the  same  position,  his  individuality  was  gone :  He 
was  Ireland.     The  same  Ireland  that  had  shone  forth 


32 

I* 

a  beacon  of  Piety,  Arts  and  Learning  in  the  dark  ages ; 
the  same  Ireland  that,  though  torn  by  faction  and  be- 
trayed every  hour  by  treason,  had  resisted  the  usurpa- 
tion of  England  for  five  hundred  years — the  same  Ire- 
land that  had  been  circumvented  into  capitulation  to  a 
perfidious  King  at  Limerick,  that  had  endured  the  Cross, 
despised  the  shame  and  kept  the  faith  through  the  ter- 
rors of  the  Penal  Code,  that  had  slept  in  the  tomb  with 
Sarsfield,  had  revived  to  newness  of  life  under  Grattan, 
and  had  been  buried  again  by  Pitt  in  the  grave  of  the 
Union — the  same  Ireland  revived  and  regenerated, 
wearing  indeed  the  cerecloth  of  sepulture,  but  more  ma- 
jestic, more  vigorous  and  more  terrible  to  her  oppressors 
than  ever. 

The  agency  employed  by  O'Connell  was  as  simple 
and  sublime  as  were  his  own  position  and  character. 
Combination  is  inherent  in  Democratic  action.  Civil 
and  military  associations  were  employed  in  1782  and  in 
the  rebellion  of  1798.  Civil  association  was  again  tried, 
but  without  effect,  in  1810.  The  Government  had  now 
put  forth  all  its  skill  to  frame  laws  which  should  pre- 
vent combination.  There  should  be  no  inilitary  asso- 
ciation, no  secret  association,  no  Representative  or  dele- 
gated Assembly^  none  that  was  2^olitical,  and  none  to 
continue  more  than  fourteen  days.  Nevertheless, 
O'Connell  organized  and  maintained  during  seven 
years  a  combination  extending  over  the  Island,  em- 
bracing seven  hundred  thousand  members,  and  receiv- 
ing £50,000  annually,  which  violated  none  of  the  inhi- 
bitions of  the  law,  and  yet  had  all  the  efficiency  which 
they  were  designed  to  prevent.  The  centre  of  Agitation 
was  ultimately  Conciliation  Hall  in  Dublin,  fitted  up 


>o 


as  a  Capitol.  Business  was  transacted  and  debates 
conducted  with  legislative  forms.  The  doors  were 
open  to  every  subject  and  publicity  was  more  effective 
than  executive  secrecy. 

The  assembly  was  crowded  with  impassioned  and 
sympathising  auditors,  who  manifested  approval  or  dis- 
satisfaction without  restraint,  while  the  speakers  were 
animated  by  the  smiles  of  Beauty  from  the  galleries. 
The  themes  discussed  with  all  the  genius  and  fervor  of 
Irish  eloquence  by  O'Connell,  Shiel  and  their  asso- 
ciates, were  the  British  Constitution,  the  Penal  Code, 
the  Resources  and  Destiny  of  Ireland — its  condition — 
the  value  of  Liberty — the  evils  of  Faction ;  and  not 
only  these,  but  the  daily  conduct  of  Government,  the 
oppression  of  every  landlord,  the  grievance  of  every 
tenant,  the  insults  of  every  patrician,  the  meekness  of 
every  plebeian ;  in  short,  whatever  tended  to  excite,  to 
rouse  and  to  combine  the  Irish  People.  A  Journal  es- 
tablished by  the  Association  transmitted  the  debates 
to  kindred  associations  in  every  part  of  the  Island,  by 
whom  the  same  animating  topics  were  discussed  with 
even  greater  zeal. 

Ireland  looked  with  pride  on  a  voluntary  and  self- 
constituted  Legislature  which  for  a  time  eclipsed  from 
their  sight  the  Britisb Parliament.  The  enthusiasm  of 
Ireland  re-assured  the  advocates  of  Religious  Tole- 
rance in  England  and  in  Europe.  And  then  every 
Irish  Exile  in  America,  in  its  cities  and  fields  and  for- 
ests, on  its  canals  and  rivers,  returned  a  willing  and 
effective  blow  against  England.     America,  yielding  to 

their  enthusiasm  and  to  natural  impulses,  saluted  the 

3 


34 

new  Republic  of  Ireland  with  gratiilations  and  contri- 
butions. 

It  seemed  as  if  one  discontented  Irish  subject  had 
roused  the  world  against  the  Monarchy  of  Britain. 
England  had  nothing  to  oppose  to  the  universal  opin- 
ion of  Mankind,  but  fears  which  were  groundless,  ha- 
bits which  were  absurd  and  prejudices  which  were  un- 
christian. 

Oppression,  however,  had  not  altogether  failed  of  its 
legitimate  effects  on  the  Irish  people.  Ignorance 
abounded.  Intemperance  had  laid  its  maddening  hand 
on  starving  multitudes.  There  were  inveterate  feuds 
between  the  Catholic  and  Orange  peasantry.  The  lat- 
ter had  long  maintained  secret  associations,  and  the 
former  were  often  banded  in  opposing  societies.  These 
associations  involved  Ireland  in  continual  turbulence 
and  riot,  and  often  in  scenes  of  blood. 

"  The  Orange  beggar  spumed 
The  Papist  beggar's  hand, 
Wliile  Freedom,  shrinking,  turned 
And  fled  the  hapless  land." 

It  was  necessary  to  tranquilize  Ireland  and  thus  to 
prove  that  the  People  were  capable  of  self-government. 
O'Connell  invoked  order.  All  Ireland  was  immediately 
organized  in  vast  assemblies  under  the  name  of  O'Con- 
nell's  Police.  Temperance  and  tranquility  reigned 
throughout  the  Island.  In  time  these  assemblies  be- 
came a  subject  of  complaint.  O'Connell  had  but  to  say, 
"You  wait  the  word  of  comWud :  I  give  it:  Halt, 
disband,*'  and  instantly  O'Connell's  Police  was  re- 
solved into  the  peaceful  constituency  of  the  Liberator. 


35 

The  cause  of  Emancipation  advanced  in  England, 
and  a  majority  in  its  favor  was  already  secured  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  But  still  the  Representatives 
from  Ireland  gave  it  no  effective  aid.  A  signal  blow 
was  wanting,  and  that  fell  from  O'Connell's  hand,  with 
boldness,  precision  and  effect. 

"  Electors  of  Clare,"  said  he,  on  the  eve  of  a  special 
election,  ''you  want  a  Representative  in  Parliament; 
I  solicit  your  suffrages.  True,  I  am  a  Catholic.  I 
cannot,  and  of  course  I  never  will,  take  the  oaths  pre- 
scribed. But  the  power  which  created  those  oaths  can 
abrogate  them.  If  you  elect  me,  I  will  try  the  ques- 
tion." O'Connell  could  only  expect  to  be  elected  by 
the  forty-shilling  freeholders,  as  they  were  called,  ten- 
ants of  the  landlords  in  Clare.  Their  votes,  by  tacit 
understanding  and  unbroken  usage,  belonged  to  their 
lords.  Ruin  awaited  him  who  diverted  his  suffrage. 
But  there  was  now  a  power  higher  than  the  landlord. 

You  see  a  mass  of  the  peasantry  of  Clare  issuing 
from  the  little  parish  church  on  the  hill-side.  They 
have  reverently  received  the  Mass;  but  their  steps 
indicate  perturbation.  They  gather  around  the  priest 
and  ask  his  paternal  counsel  concerning  the  hazardous 
requirement  of  O'Connell.  The  priest  lays  down  his 
missal,  raises  his  hand  toward  Heaven,  breaks  forth 
in  their  own  wild  native  language,  recites  to  them  the 
story  of  their  ancient  fame  and  of  the  persecution  and 
perfidy  of  their  conquerors,  expatiates  on  their  inherent 
right  of  liberty  of  conscience,  and  the  right  and  dut}^ 
of  passive  resistance,  on  the  sublimity  of  suffrage  and 
the  glory  and  renown  that  are  now  breaking  in  upon 
Ireland,  and  concludes  his  impassioned  harangue  with 


36 

the  injunction;  "Vote,  vote  for  O'Connell  and  Free- 
dom." 

It  is  now  the  election  day.  There  is  O'Connell, 
depicting  the  atrocities  of  British  persecution  with  a 
noble  ardor  of  religious  zeal.  A  band  of  tenants  are 
marching  by  under  the  conduct  of  their  landlord,  to 
vote  for  the  ministerial  candidate.  They  pause ;  they 
mingle  in  the  crowd ;  they  listen,  and  now,  at  every 
cadence  of  the  Liberator's  voice,  redoubled  shouts 
arise,  "O'Connell  and  Freedom." 

An  elector  is  released  from  jail  by  his  creditor  on 
condition  that  he  vote  against  O'Connell.  He  is  al- 
ready at  the  polls — a  shrill  cry  is  heard — it  is  the 
debtor's  wife  who  speaks — "Remember  your  soul  and 
Liberty."  The  debtor  rises  to  the  majesty  of  a  Free- 
man, and  declares  his  vote  for  O'Connell.  Instantly 
all  rents  in  arrear  are  paid  by  the  Catholic  Association. 
The  Elector's  debt  is  discharged  by  the  same  onmi- 
present  power,  and  that  noble  Celtic  woman's  exclama- 
tion becomes  the  watchword  of  all  Ireland : 

"  Remember  your  Soul  and  Liberty !" 

O'Connell  is  elected.  Let  his  illustrious  coadjutor, 
Shiel,  explain  the  event.  Turning  to  the  defeated  and 
confounded  adversary,  he  exclaims — 

"  We  have  indeed  put  a  great  engine  in  motion,  and 
applied  the  entire  force  of  that  powerful  machinery 
which  the  law  has  placed  in  our  hands.  We  are  mas- 
ters of  the  passions  of  the  People,  and  we  have  em- 
ployed our  dominion  with  a  terrible  effect.  Do  you 
imagine  that  we  could  have  acquired  this  dreadful 
ability  to  sunder  the  strongest  ties  by  which  the  differ- 


37 

ent  classes  of  society  are  fastened,  unless  we  found  the 
materials  of  excitement  in  the  state  of  society  itself? 
Do  you  think  Daniel  O'Connell  has  himself,  and  by 
the  single  power  of  his  mind,  unaided  by  any  external 
co-operation,  brought  the  country  to  this  great  crisis  of 
agitation?  O'Connell,  with  all  his  talents,  would 
have  been  utterly  powerless  and  incapable,  unless  he 
had  been  allied  with  a  great  conspirator  against  the 
public  peace.  It  is  the  law  of  the  land  itself  that  has 
been  O'Connell's  main  associate,  and  that  ought  to  be 
denounced  as  the  mighty  Agitator  of  Ireland.  The 
rod  of  oppression  is  the  wand  of  this  potent  Enchanter 
of  the  Passions,  and  the  book  of  his  spells  is  the  Penal 
Code.  Break  the  wand  of  this  political  Prospero,  and 
take  from  him  the  volume  of  his  magic,  and  he  will 
evoke  the  Spirits  which  are  now  under  his  control  no 
longer." 

What  language  could  do  justice  to  the  Clergy  of 
Ireland,  who,  through  imprisonment,  banishment  and 
fire,  still  adhered  to  their  charge;  who  preferred  to 
share  the  poverty  of  the  People  rather  than  obtain  an 
establishment  at  the  expense  of  their  liberty.  Yenera- 
ble  Ministry  !  It  was  the  British  State  that  taught 
you  to  mingle  Politics  with  Religion.  Wisely,  faith- 
fully and  in  the  fear  of  God  did  you  give  back  the 
fruits  of  those  instructions.  It  was  your  task  to  prove 
against  the  prejudices  of  a  skeptical  age  that  Piety  still 
dwelt  in  the  Church  of  Christ,  and  that  Civil  Liberty 
was  cherished  in  its  sanctuaries. 

Nor  can  we  repress  our  admiration  for  the  heroic 
People.  A  division  among  them  would  have  arrested, 
while  a  panic  or  an  excusable  gust  of  passion  might 
have  defeated  Catholic  Emancipation.     They  proved 


38 

themselves  worthy  of  then*  great  leader  by  the  confi- 
dence they  gave  him — worthy  of  Religious  Liberty  by 
practicing  the  virtues  they  enjoined. 

Generous  People  !  May  that  leader's  place  be  speed- 
ily and  worthily  filled.  May  the  way  of  your  Ex- 
iles among  us  be  smooth  and  pleasant,  and  your  long 
suffering  patience  be  early  crowned  by  the  restoration 
of  your  country  to  enduring  Independence. 

Clare  was  a  part  of  that  Connaught  which  had  been 
the  City  of  Refuge  for  Catholic  Ireland.  Clare  was 
the  Yorktown  of  the  Irish  Revolution.  O'Connell 
was  the  Representative  of  Clare,  and  not  only  of  Clare, 
but  of  Catholic  Ireland.  He  was  an  elected  Represen- 
tative, obliged  by  English  laws  to  stand  outside  the  bar 
of  the  British  Commons.  Ireland  felt  the  importance  of 
his  position.  Ireland,  by  the  act  of  union  a  member  of 
the  British  Empire,  is  going  up  to  London  in  the  per- 
son of  O'Connell,  to  demand  her  constitutional  place 
in  the  Councils  of  the  British  King — to  demand  from 
that  King  Religious  Liberty.  How  potent  is  the  atti- 
tude of  peaceful,  passive  resistance !  How  vast  the 
power  that  virtue  derives  from  persecution!  O'Con- 
nell is  now  the  most  majestic  figure  in  the  world. 

The  British  Ministry  advise  the  King  that  Catholic 
Emancipation  can  no  longer  be  resisted.  All  that  re- 
mains is  to  grant  it  by  law,  not  to  concede  it  by  seem- 
ing treaty — to  Emancipate  Catholic  Ireland  before  her 
representative  can  reach  the  Capitol,  and  to  save 
wounded  pride  by  denying  O'Connell  the  seat  to 
which  he  has  been  elected  and  by  disfranchising  the 
refractory  peasantry  of  Ireland. 

And  this  is  done.  But  the  wound  given  to  British 
pride  must  rankle   nevertheless;    for  faithful  Clare, 


39 

though  its  peasantry  are  disfranchised,  returns  the  Libe- 
rator by  acclamation. 

O'CoNNELL  as  a  Senator  followed  up  the  act  of 
Emancipation  by  successful  measures  to  modify  the 
Tithes  of  the  Established  Chiu'ch  in  Ireland,  to  open 
the  close  corporations  of  the  realm,  and  to  establish  a 
system  of  equal  and  universal  Education  in  his  native 
country,  while  he  lent  to  the  English  Reformers  effi- 
cient and  indispensable  aid  in  the  Repeal  of  the  Corn 
Laws,  which  established  a  more  beneficent  system  of 
Revenue,  and  in  that  Reform  of  Parliament  which  is 
gradually  bringing  forward  a  new  and  better  Consti- 
tution for  the  United  Kingdom. 

These  beneficent  labors  did  not  for  a  moment  divert 
him  from  the  great  object  which  remained — the  Resto- 
ration of  the  Independence  of  Ireland  by  a  Repeal  of 
the  Act  of  Union. 

His  wand  had  still  all  its  virtue,  and  he  seized  on 
the  Statute  of  Usurpation  in  the  place  of  his  former 
volume  of  magic,  the  Penal  Code.  Yet  he  waited  the 
slow  but  sure  return  of  popular  impressibility  at  home, 
and  of  despotic  weakness  at  St.  James.  The  Catholic 
Association  became  a  ••precursor"  of  Repeal.  Ten 
years  were  spent  in  diffusing  knowledge  among  the 
people,  and  then  commenced  the  ever-memorable  agi- 
tation for  the  abrosration  of  the  Act  of  Union.  Under 
the  auspices  of  the  Loyal  National  Repeal  Association 
in  Conciliation  Hall,  all  Ireland  petitioned  the  British 
Parliament  for  Repeal — of  course  without  effect.  Re- 
presentatives were  returned  from  many  districts  de- 
manding Repeal,  but  all  parties  in  England  v/ere 
immoved.  The  British  Government  maintained  that 
the  sufferings  of  Ireland  were  exaggerated,  that  the 


40 

clamor  for  Repeal  was  factitious,  and  that  the  people 
were  contented  and  prosperous.  Then  the  Agitator 
determined  to  exhibit  Ireland  as  she  was  at  home  to 
her  proud  Rulers  in  England.  He  called  the  people 
forth,  and  they  came  in  vast  assemblies,  such  masses 
of  men  destitute  of  the  blessings  of  Providence  as  were 
never  before  congregated ;  as  could  not  be  convened  in 
any  well-governed  land;  such  masses  therefore  as 
could  not  be  looked  upon  by  their  oppressors  without 
shame  and  fear.  His  voice  went  forth  among  his 
humble,  heart-broken  countrymen,  like  a  harbinger  of 
happier  homes  and  days  of  Freedom.  They  came  up 
to  meet  him,  ten  thousand  at  Slievrue,  twenty  thousand 
at  Trim,  at  Bellewestown,  at  Rathkeale,  and  at  Dun- 
lea — thirty  thousand  at  Cahircornlish — fifty  thousand 
at  Clones,  at  Caltra,  at  Ballanakill  and  at  Inishowen ; 
sixty  thousand  at  Croon — seventy  thousand  at  the 
Curragh  of  Kildare — one  hundred  thousand  at  Limer- 
ick, the  scene  of  English  perfidy — at  Kells,  at  Carrick- 
macross,  at  Mullingar.  at  Sligo,  at  Drogheda,  at  Murroe, 
at  Athlone,  at  Tullamore,  at  Clifden,  at  Baltinglass,  and 
at  Donnybrook — two  hundred  thousand  at  Longford, 
at  Gal  way,  at  Mount  Mellick,  and  at  Roscommon — 
three  hundred  thousand  at  Charleville,  at  Kilkenny, 
at  Dundalk,  at  Tuam,  at  Mayo,  at  Clontebret,  and  at 
Loughrea — four  hundred  thousand  at  Cashel,  at  Ne- 
nagh,  at  Mallow,  at  Skibbereen,  at  Lismore.  and  at 
Mullaghmast — half  a  million  at  Enniscorthy — seven 
hundred  thousand  in  brave  old  Clare,  and  seven  hun- 
dred and  fifty  thousand  on  Tara's  revered  hill. 

These  multitudes  came  unarmed,  without  the  in- 
spiring notes  of  martial  music,  on  foot  and  without 
provision  for  a  day's  journey,  temperate  and  tranquil. 


41 

nay,  cheerful,  for  their  hearts  were  full  of  love  even  to 
England's  youthful  Queen,  and  they  were  animated 
with  hopes  new-born  in  the  promises  of  their  chief 
They  exposed  their  penury ;  they  petitioned  England : 
they  resolved  never  to  cease  petitioning,  until  their 
freedom  should  be  granted,  and  then  dispersed,  leaving 
the  scenes  of  their  assemblage  as  quiet  and  undisturbed 
as  the  bosoms  of  their  Lakes.  The  British  Govern- 
ment could  not  look,  the  people  of  England  could  not 
bear  to  look,  at  Ireland  in  this  piteous  attitude.  They 
affected  fear, — fear  for  what  ?  Not  of  invasion — not 
even  of  insurrection — not  even  of  sedition,  but  fear 
that  the  laws  of  the  Realm  might  be  changed  by  means 
of  demonstrations  of  physical,  unarmed  force  !  A 
great  meeting  was  yet  to  be  assembled  at  Clontarf, 
memorable  for  the  defeat  even  of  the  Conquerors  of 
England  by  Brian  Borhoime,  on  the  Irish  coast  where 
it  looks  off  on  Britain.  The  Viceroy  forbids  the 
meeting  at  Clontarf,  and  denounces  the  severest  pun- 
ishment. Armed  and  naval  forces  beset  the  place  in 
hopes  of  resistance,  that  the  war  against  a  ruined  peo- 
ple may  begin. 

O'CoNNELL  countermands  the  assemblaf]:e.  Endand 
has  in  vain  provoked  a  people  prone  to  war.  The 
country  is  saved  from  dire  calamity.  Ireland  may 
not  even  petition  under  the  British  Constitution  too 
rudely  or  too  earnestly.  Baffled  in  the  design  of 
plunging  the  country  into  civil  war,  the  Government 
now  prosecute  for  sedition  O'Connell  and  six  associ- 
ates 

" ^Vho  dare 

Their  leader's  glory  and  his  danger  share." 

A  Jury  is   packed    by  excluding  from   the   panel 


42 

every  Catholic  and  every  Patriot.  Ireland  comes  out 
from  her  hills  and  her  valleys,  to  look  upon  a  cause  in 
which  she  is  herself  on  trial  before  an  Anglo  Irish  Jury 
in  a  Court  of  the  Pale.  The  venal  Court  extort  the 
desired  verdict,  and  now  Ireland  may  no  longer  peti- 
tion. Her  own  Jury  has  condemed  her  in  her  own 
Capital. 

On  the  30th  of  May,  1844,  Daniel  O'Connell, — 
who  had  preserved  the  peace  of  Ireland  for  thirty 
years, — who  had  renewed  her  fidelity  to  the  British 
Constitution  and  to  the  British  Throne, — who  had 
given  liberty  of  conscience  to  the  British  Empire — 
who  had  peacefully  brought  his  native  country  again 
to  the  verge  of  Independence — of  that  very  Indepen- 
dence which  sixty-two  years  before  had  been  conce- 
ded to  her  as  unquestioned  and  unquestionable, — Dan- 
iel O'Connell,  the  truest  Briton,  and  the  noblest 
Statesman  of  the  age,  on  the  very  border  of  three- 
score and  ten  years,  was  consigned  to  Prison  by  a 
Jury  of  his  own  countrymen,  constituted  of  traitors,  by 
a  subversion  of  the  common  law,  for  the  offence  of  ex- 
ercising his  constitutional  right  as  a  subject  to  petition 
the  Rulers  of  the  Empire  for  a  Repeal  of  an  act  of 
Parliament. 

When  will  the  crimes  of  the  Aristocracy  of  the 
Enghsh  Pale  have  an  end  !  When  shall  the  world 
cease  to  hear  with  horror  the  mention  of  a  Jury  of 
Dublin  !  It  was  a  Jury  of  Dublin  that  sent  E.mmett 
and  Fitzgerald  to  the  scaffold. 

Had  such  a  conviction  happened  in  Paris,  the  Prison 
would  have  been  razed  to  the  ground,  and  the  Jurors 
torn  limb  from  limb.  But  this  new  act  of  Tyranny 
wrought  no  other  change  on  O'Connell,  or  on  the 


43 

People  of  Ireland,  than  to  increase  their  mutual  devo- 
tion. They  obeyed  all  his  peaceful  mandates,  issued 
from  his  Prison,  and  when  the  illegal  judgment  was 
reversed,  received  him  with  increased  affection  at  its 
doors  and  conducted  him  abroad  as  a  Conqueror.  No- 
thing had  been  lost  by  Ireland,  and  the  Government 
had  only  suppressed  one  of  the  thousand  agencies  of 
Freedom.  England  had  added  to  her  causes  for  hating 
Ireland  the  remembrance  of  another  crime  against 
her,  perpetrated  in  vain. 

The  Revolution  was  just  recovering  from  this  brief 
recoil  when  a  blight  fell  on  the  only  food  that  the  aris- 
tocracy of  England  had  left  for  the  subsistence  of  the 
Irish  People.  Agitation  ceased  and  the  jar  of  political 
elements  was  hushed  before  the  fearful  presence  of 
Famine.  Perhaps  this  last  desolation  was  necessary 
to  convince  the  Government  and  the  People  of  Great 
Britain  of  the  solemn  and  mighty  import  of  O'Con- 
nell's  words : 

"  The  cause  of  all  the  afflictions  of  Ireland  is  that  we 
have  not  been  allowed  to  govern  our  own  Country." 

Perhaps  his  Death  was  necessary  to  conciliate  her 
oppressors.  Certainly  such  a  visitation,  and  such  a 
death,  were  a  fitting  end  for  the  woes  of  the  Irish  Peo- 
ple. 

The  Independence  of  the  Irish  Nation,  although  fu- 
ture, is  not  distant.  Its  righteousness  and  its  necessity 
have  been  demonstrated.  The  Spirit  of  the  People  is 
changed.  They  cannot  again  relapse.  England,  too, 
with  a  Reformed  Parliament,  and  a  falling  Aristocracy, 
is  no  longer  the  England  of  the  Twelfth,  the  Sixteenth, 
and  of  the  Eighteenth  Centuries.  Political  Economy 
will  unite  with  Political  Philosophy  in  enabling  Ireland 


44 

to  retrieve  her  prosperity,  and  that  can  be  effected 
only  by  allowing  her  a  Distinct  Legislature. 

We  may  not  doubt  that  the  appalling  distress  of  the 
Irish  people,  bowed  down  the  otherwise  unbending 
mind  of  O'Connell.  Sorrow  for  afflictions  that  he 
had  hoped  in  vain  to  avert,  and  that  he  could  not  alle- 
viate or  soothe,  brought  on  quick-coming  because  long 
procrastinated  age.  O'Connell  died  like  Anchises  in 
a  foreign  land,  winning  the  favor  of  men,  and  propi- 
tiating Heaven  wdth  prayers  and  sacrifices  for  the  re- 
storation of  his  people. 

What  shall  be  his  rank  among  the  benefactors  of 
mankind  ?  We  pause  not  a  moment  to  disperse  the 
calumnies  that  followed  him  to  the  grave.  They  were 
but  tributes  to  his  greatness,  yielded  by  ungenerous 
minds, — for  it  is  thus  that  Providence  compels  the  un- 
just to  honor  Virtue. 

O'Connell  left  his  mighty  enterprise  unfinished.  So 
did  the  Founder  of  the  Hebrew  State  ;  so  did  Cato; 
so  did  Hamden;  so  did  Emmett  and  Fitzgerald.  Will 
their  epitaphs  be  less  sublime  by  reason  of  the  long 
delay  which  intervenes  before  they  can  be  written  ? 
The  heroic  man  conceives  great  enterprises  and  labors 
to  complete  them.  "  Success  he  hopes,  and  fate  he 
cannot  fear."  It  is  God  that  sets  the  limits  to  human 
life  and  the  bounds  to  human  achievement. 

But  has  not  O'Connell  done  more  than  enouirh  for 
fame?  On  the  lofty  brow  of  Monticello,  under  a  green 
old  oak,  is  a  block  of  granite,  and  underneath  are  the 
ashes  of  Jefferson.  Read  the  epitaph — it  is  the  Sage's 
claim  to  Immortality : 

"Author  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  of 
the  Statute  for  Religious  Liberty." 


45 

Stop  now  and  write  an  epitaph  for  Daniel  O'Con- 
nell: 

"  He  gave  Liberty  of  Conscience  to  Europe,  and  re- 
newed the  Revolutions  of  the  Kingdoms  toward  Uni- 
versal Freedom,  which  had  begun  in  America  and  had 
been  arrested  by  the  anarchy  of  France." 

Let  the  Statesmen  of  the  age  read  that  epitaph  and 
be  humble.  Let  the  Kings  and  Aristocracies  of  the 
Earth  read  it  and  tremble. 

Who  has  ever  accomplished  so  much  for  Human 
Freedom,  with  means  so  feeble  ?  Who  but  he  has 
ever  given  Liberty  to  a  People,  by  the  mere  utter- 
ance of  his  voice,  without  an  army,  navy  or  revenues 
— without  a  sword,  a  spear,  or  even  a  shield  ? 

Who  but  he  ever  subverted  Tyranny,  saved  the 
lives  of  the  oppressed,  and  yet  spared  the  oppressor  ? 

Who  but  he  ever  detached  from  a  venerable  con- 
stitution a  column  of  Aristocracy,  dashed  it  to  the 
earth,  and  yet  left  the  ancient  fabric  stronger  and 
more  beautiful  than  before  ? 

Who  but  he  has  ever  lifted  up  seven  millions  of 
People  from  the  debasement  of  ages  to  the  dignity  of 
Freedom,  without  exacting  an  ounce  of  gold  or  wast- 
ing the  blood  of  one  human  heart  ? 

Whose  voice  yet  lingers  like  O'Connell's  in  the  ear 
of  tyrants,  making  them  sink  with  fear  of  change,  and 
in  the  ear  of  the  most  degraded  slaves  on  earth,  awa- 
king hopes  of  Freedom ! 

Who  before  him  has  brou2:ht  the  schismatics  of  two 
centuries  together,  conciliating  them  at  the  altar  of 
Universal  Liberty.  Who  but  he  ever  brought  Papal 
Rome  and  Protestant  America  to  burn  incense  to- 
gether ? 


46 

It  was  O'Connell's  mission  to  teach  mankind  that 
Liberty  was  not  estranged  from  Christianity,  as  was 
proclaimed  by  Revolutionary  France — that  she  was 
not  divorced  from  Law  and  Public  Order — that  she 
was  not  a  demon  like  Moloch,  requiring  to  be  propi- 
tiated with  the  blood  of  human  sacrifice — that  De- 
mocracy is  the  daughter  of  Peace,  and  like  true  Re- 
ligion worketh  by  Love. 

I  see  in  Catholic  Emancipation,  and  in  the  Repeal 
of  the  Act  of  Union  between  Great  Britain  and  Ireland 
only  incidents  of  an  all  pervading  phenomenon — a 
phenomenon  of  mighty  interest,  but  not  portentous  of 
evil.  It  is  the  universal  dissolution  of  Monarchical  and 
Aristocratical  Governments,  and  the  establishment  of 
pure  Democracies  in  their  place. 

I  know  this  change  must  come,  for  even  the  me- 
naced Governments  feel  and  confess  it.  I  know  that  it 
will  be  resisted,  for  it  is  not  in  the  nature  of  Power  to 
relax.  It  is  a  fearful  inquiry,  How  shall  that  change 
be  passed  ?  Shall  there  never  be  an  end  to  Devasta- 
tion and  Carnage  ?  Is  every  step  of  Human  Progress 
in  the  future,  as  in  the  past,  to  be  marked  by  blood  ? 
Must  the  nations  of  the  earth,  after  groaning  for  ages 
under  vicious  Institutions  established  without  their 
consent,  wade  through  deeper  seas  to  reach  that  con- 
dition of  more  perfect  Liberty  to  which  they  are  so 
rapidly,  so  irresistibly  impelled  ?  Or  shall  they  be 
able  notwithstanding  involuntary  ignorance  and  de- 
basement contracted  without  their  fault,  and  notwith- 
standing the  blind  resistance  of  Despotism,  to  change 
their  forms  of  Government  by  slow  and  measured  de- 
grees, without  entirely  or  all  at  once  subverting  them, 
and  from  time  to  time  to  repair  their  ancient  coustitu- 


47 

tions  so  as  to  adapt  them  peacefully  to  the  progress  of 
the  age,  the  diffusion  of  knowledge,  the  cultivation  of 
virtue,  and  the  promotion  of  happiness. 

When  that  crisis  shall  come,  the  colossal  fabric  of 
the  British  Empire  will  have  given  way  under  its  al- 
ways accumulating  weight.  I  see  England  then,  in 
solitude  and  in  declining  greatness,  as  Rome  was  when 
her  provinces  were  torn  away,  as  Spain  now  is  since 
the  loss  of  the  Indies.  I  see  Ireland,  invigorated  by 
the  severe  experience  of  a  long,  though  peaceful. 
Revolution,  extending  her  arms  East  and  West  in  fra- 
ternal embrace  toward  new  rising  States ;  her  re- 
sources restored  and  improved  ;  her  people  prosper- 
ous and  happy,  and  her  institutions  again  shedding  the 
lights  of  Piety,  Art  and  Freedom  over  the  world. 
Then  I  see  among  the  perplexed  and  disturbed  nations 
the  now  proud  and  all-conquering  Anglo-Saxons  look- 
ing up  to  the  regenerated  Celtic  People  for  guidance 
and  protection. 

Come  forward,  then,  ye  Nations  who  are  trembling 
between  the  dangers  of  Anarchy  and  the  pressure  of 
Despotism,  and  hear  a  voice  that  addresses  the  Libe- 
rator of  Ireland  from  the  caverns  of  Silence  where 
Prophecy  is  born : 

"  To  Tliee,  now  sainted  Spirit, 
Patriarch  of  a  ■wide-spreading  family, 
Remotest  lands  and  unborn  times  shall  turn 
Whether  they  would  restore  or  build.     To  Thee  ! 
As  one  who  rightly  taught  how  Zeal  should  burn  ; 
As  one  who  drew  from  out  Faith's  holiest  urn, 
The  purest  streams  of  Patient  Energy. "" 


•TT'^r^TTIDHTEfSF-TTS' 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 
on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


1^ 


^UB 


REC'D  LD 


utu  14  UjS3 


MAY     4198 


LATIOM  DI^EI. 


BEa  CIR.  W  4 


APR  0  2  2001 


^ 


^ 


LD  21-100m-6,'56 
(B9311sl0)476 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


